WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal
investigative agency is examining 67 claims of retaliation by
supervisors at the Department of Veterans Affairs against employees who
filed whistleblower complaints — including 25 complaints filed since
June 1, after a growing health care scandal involving long patient waits
and falsified records at VA hospitals and clinics became public.
The
independent Office of Special Counsel said 30 of the complaints about
retaliation have passed the initial review stage and were being further
investigated for corrective action and possible discipline against VA
supervisors and other executives. The complaints were filed in 28 states
at 45 separate facilities, Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner said.
Instead
of using information provided by whistleblowers as an early warning
system, the VA often "has ignored or attempted to minimize problems,
allowing serious issues to fester and grow," Lerner said Tuesday night
at a hearing before the House Veterans Affairs Committee. Worse,
officials have retaliated against whistleblowers instead of
investigating their complaints, she said.
The counsel's office also reversed a suspension for a VA employee in Hawaii who reported seeing an elderly patient being improperly restrained in a wheelchair. The whistleblower was granted full back pay and an unspecified monetary award and the official who retaliated against the worker was suspended, Lerner said.
James
Tuchschmidt, a top official at the Veterans Health Administration, the
VA's health care arm, said he was sorry that VA employees have suffered
retaliation after making complaints.Katherine Mitchell, M.D., medical director, Iraq and Afghanistan Post-Deployment Center, Phoenix VA …
